Say more, Stephen. What exactly do you mean by "reload the script on change"? I would think that that there would be a noticeable delay if that's all you did, though certainly it's worth a try.
I agree strongly with Victor's emphasis on the high value of immediate connection. In the 1980s in the context of the big Unix workstation project at Carnegie Mellon, I created the cT language to make it easy to write (2D) graphics-oriented programs on Unix workstations (and later the same programs also ran on Windows and Mac). One of the features of the cT programming environment was that you could draw on the screen and generate code (like using a graphics editor), and you could select a (2D) coordinate in the program and click on the screen to reposition an object (by changing the coordinate in the code and reexecution). So a very limited version of what Victor is doing. It was possible only because cT, patterned after the TUTOR and microtutor languages of the PLATO computer-based education system, was organized as an archipelago of "units" that could be used as base programs (you could start up a different base with a "jump" statement, which cleared the screen and started the jumped-to unit) or as functions called by other units. The units were compiled just-in-time, so when the editor detected a change in a unit (the editor recognized unit boundaries) just that unit needed to be recompiled and reexecuted. But you could be right. Computers are so fast now that maybe it would work just to reexecute the whole JavaScript program. I guess I should try this in the GlowScript context. Thanks for the tip, Stephen. Bruce On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Stephen Guerin <[email protected]> wrote: > This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting > to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for > recommending it. > > Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me. > > Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without > having to mess with the compiler. > > -Stephen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
